Sunday, January 18, 2004

Big Holistic Companies Something I haven't quite worked out yet is how the coming boom in holistic health is going to play out with the size of each holistic business. Right now, 95% of all holistic health companies are very small, less than five employees. The only large corporations are the vitamin and mineral suppliers and multi-level marketing companies selling magnetic bracelets, etc. Whole Foods Market is the only truly big business that could be categorized as holistic. I've thought their stock was overpriced for months now, but I've only been watching like an idiot as it has increased in value over 50% since the summer. It seems like there is no end to the upside of this stock!! I still refuse to buy it because I just can't justify buying the stock of a $3B company with a 42 P/E ratio no matter how quickly it seems to be growing. All the best to them, though. But the holistic service companies are almost entirely small in revenue and employees. The biggest I can think of in Columbus, Ohio is called Gentle Wind, which has perhaps 30 practitioners who come in and out part-time to rent massage tables and rooms and do their thing with clients, mostly reiki, massage, psychic readings, etc. My guess is that Gentle Wind makes $2M a year at the absolute maximum. And probably most of that is from book and crystal sales, not healing sessions and classes. Te healing and classes probably represents 30% of that $2M revenue, so we're talking about $600,000, including what is paid to the subcontractor healers. See what I mean? Small. So what is going to happen when the holistic health realm turns out to be a trillion dollar industry? It seems obvious that the big companies are going to jump in. Who can afford to ignore a trillion dollars?? So, okay, they jump in. But can a big company "get it" about what holistic health is all about? Individual attention, caring, touching, healing?? Big company cultures are not compatible with that, are they? It seems like they would try to HMO-ify the industry, which just wouldn't work. We holistic customers would just keep going to the lady down the street who treats us like a human being instead of a number, even if the Wal-Mart Massage Clinic is cheaper. So I don't know what's going to happen there. It seems to me that we need smart businesspeople who care deeply about holistic health principles and want it to succeed in their hearts. Those businesspeople can create businesses and hire holistic health practitioners (can you imagine a steady paycheck for a holistic health practitioner??) and create totally new work environments where the practitioners can thrive. It would be a cross between an artists' colony, a clinic and a business. Sound fun? So that's my thought, however inconclusive. I think it will become obvious within 24 months where holistic health will go, the big biz way or the new biz way. You know what I'm hoping? 2:40:35 PM

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